North American (NA) Valorant teams are battling it out in the Valorant Champions Tour (VCT) Last Chance Qualifier and fans have been ecstatic with the return of veteran player Michael “Shroud” Grzesiek to pro play. Things did not go according to plan for the Sentinels squad which dropped its first series to The Guard and moved to the lower bracket and took down Shopify Rebellion. However, Sentinels was criticized for its missplay in the opening series of the tournament where it let Shroud plant the spike. Following this, esports personalities and pros including Tarik "tarik" Celik have openly discussed what Sentinels needs to do to win it all.
What does Tarik think about Sentinels in the VCT NA LCQ?
Tarik has been co-streaming the VCT NA LCQ matches on Twitch and has been dissecting the plays. In a recent livestream, he shared his thoughts on how Sentinels has been performing in the VCT NA LCQ and what strategies they could potentially use to win the tournament and make it to Istanbul, Turkey for Valorant Champions.
As of now, Sentinels have played two best-of-three series against The Guard and Shopify Rebellion. The series against The Guard was extremely close and Sentinels lost the decider map off the back of a poor missplay. The team let Shroud carry the spike and plant it instead of having him play post-plant scenarios and enabling him to be the one to take on clutches. The team and its in-game leader acknowledged it and called it a mistake that they will learn from.
Sentinels showed resilience and mental fortitude when it bounced off that defeat and took down Shopify Rebellion in the lower bracket with a 2-0 score. Now, its next series is against 100 Thieves and the squad has over four days to prepare for it.
Talking about Sentinels, Tarik said, “They don’t look bad at all. They had a really close game versus The Guard. Today they should have won more convincingly 2-0. The stars are slowly aligning.”
Tarik says Shroud is an anchor on the site
Tarik stated that he does not see Shroud as a “crazy fragger star” and that he should be utilized in post-plants. He opined, “The way I see Shroud being utilized efficiently is that they put him in the clutches, they put him in the post-plants. He is an anchor on the site for defense. When he’s anchoring, he’s getting two kills. When he’s put in these clutches, he’s winning them.”
He also stated that Shroud is a player who is really impactful and is not someone who is going to top-frag with 30 odd kills in a match.
Shroud is currently playing controller agents for Sentinels and has already shown incredible performances on Viper, Brimstone, and Astra. Against The Guard, Shroud had a KDA of 39/59/25 and a KDA of 39/33/18 against Shopify Rebellion in VCT NA LCQ. Shroud’s debut with Sentinels already broke viewership records in the opening series and if the team goes on to win the Last Chance Qualifier, it would take the esports world by storm.
